APRIL 12, 2002

Legal moves from Phoenix

ALTHOUGH information was hard to come by in the Imola paddock on Thursday, there were suggestions that back in London there was some fairly intense legal activity going on as Phoenix Finance Ltd. apparently tried to get an injunction to lift the ban on the cars competing in F1 his year. Exactly what happened is not clear at the moment but it seems that the whole issue has been diverted to arbitration. Whatever the case, there were no Phoenix cars in Imola.

FIA President Max Mosley is expected to throw some light on the issue when he talks to the international media on Saturday.

In the meantime Arrows boss Tom Walkinshaw has been distancing himself from the project saying that he did alert his longtime friend Charles Nickerson to the potential purchase of Prost assets and offered to help him out with engineering support and personnel. Nickerson has not been seen in the paddock at all this year although according to earlier statements he was only "a representative" of Phoenix rather than being the owner.

The odd thing about the whole story is that Phoenix seems to have a lot of representatives - and not a lot of owners.

Walkinshaw's dedication to Phoenix was such that he spent a good part of the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend going from team boss to team boss trying to convince them all to let Phoenix compete his year (although he did not receive much support).

Walkinshaw says that rebuilding Arrows remains his priority. The team has however suffered somewhat this year by being unable to test and Walkinshaw's efforts on behalf of Phoenix have perplexed many F1 observers.